Identify Yourself, Cool Facts About Woodlice 

This video is part of a miniseries on "Cool Facts about Unusual Plants and Animals." In this episode, a woodlouse narrates the movie. Enjoy.
Hey man, I'm a crustacean, you may know my cousins: shrimp, lobster and crab. They live in the water, while I live on land.
I hatched from an egg and stayed in a special pouch, called a marsupium, with my mother, before becoming large enough to explore the world on my own.
Like my marine cousins, I use gill-like structures to exchange gasses. I require moist environments to breathe, but cannot survive being submerged in water.
Unlike most animals, I don't need to urinate and excrete urea. I have an amazing ability to tolerate ammonia gas, which passes directly though my exoskeleton, rather than being turned into urine.
I can also drink with my anus. Although I can drink the old-fashioned way, with my mouthparts, I can also take in water through my rear end.
I also eat my own poop. I mostly eat decaying plant material, but munch on lots of feces too. Each time I poop, I lose a little copper, and this is an essential element I need to live. In order to recycle this precious resource, I consume my own poop. Not a big deal!
I have high tolerance for areas with heavy metal contamination and take in metals such as copper, zinc, lead and cadmium and crystallize these out as spherical deposits, removing toxic metal ions from the soil.
If predators attack, I roll into a ball, effectively becoming an inpenetratable tank (Armadillidium spp.). Or if the predators are particularly nasty and bad to me, I will exude a thick glue from my rear end. And this will entangle ground beetles, centipedes and spiders.
I don't worry too much about my own sex. You know, I was born a male. But if i get infected by certain bacteria (Wolbachia spp.), I may change into a female in adulthood and I'll give birth to eggs that will eventually also become female. These bacteria change my hormone levels. And so it's, it's no big deal, being a male or female.
But, I DO worry about another parasite that I can get. I have to be really careful when I'm eating poop from birds. Song birds. They carry a parasitic worm that will cause me to become become a day-active zombie. And if I am a day-active zombie, I will be out during the day, rather than hiding. And I will be more likely eaten by birds.
There is one thing that I need to be careful of. I need to beware of people who like to eat me and my aquatic cousins. They sometimes call me Land Shrimp! Ouhhh, that makes me shudder....
For additional information see: www3.northern.e..., dailyparasite.b..., insects.about.c..., www.eattheweeds..., insects.tamu.e..., www-personal.um..., scienceblogs.co...
Videography by Ken Kramm, July 2013; Canon Vixia HF G10, Final Cut Pro X. Identify (walki talkie vox) by Speck, licensed under a CC Atribution 3.0 ccmixter.org/fi..., Darkness Speaks by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under a CC Attribution 3.0, incompetech.com..., Paper-rip, SoundJay.com free sound effects.